


this disguise is pencil thin

by Julx3tte, sinningjul (Julx3tte)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hip massage, Oral Sex, back massage, emotional smut, fingering ur friend on the bed bc she asked, just before the ruinion, on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:40:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26332777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julx3tte/pseuds/Julx3tte, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julx3tte/pseuds/sinningjul
Summary: sylvain rides from Gautier to Galatea to Fraldarius. his hips ache and his butt is sore and Ingrid offers him a massage.Who is he to refuse?soft. tender. gallant inspired.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

“I can give you a massage,” Ingrid said.

Sylvain whipped his head so fast he thought he’d need a second massage. “What?”

“You said your hip hurts. I used to give my brothers hip massages while they were still getting used to riding. It’s pretty simple,” she replied, flexing her fingers to prove her point.

It did nothing to assuage the sudden spell of nervousness that pulsed through Sylvain as he thought of where Ingrid’s hands would have to touch to execute such an anatomical maneuver.

They’d been riding for days from Galatea to Fraldarius; Sylvain, who’d come down from Gautier to pick her up, had an even longer trip. It was a shame they couldn’t both take pegasi to speed up the trips. Ingrid’s winged horse whined whenever they rode underneath a clearing of trees, asking to be let up into the air. But it would draw far too much attention.

Instead, they were forced to slog through the three day trip the hard way. By the second night, Sylvain was sure he strained something.

He was stretching outside of the tent they shared while Ingrid sat with her back against him by the fire.

“Uh,” he said, groaning as a particularly painful muscle caught the stretch. “I’m not sure.”

Ingrid turned her head back to look at him. They’d both packed light - just a sling bag of spare clothes to sleep in, their armor and weapons, and enough food to get to Felix. They expected to make it to Garreg Mach with a few hours to spare. 

As a result, Ingrid, wore a rough nightgown thick enough to quickly don armor over. Sylvain was in just his underclothes, trying to stretch and massage his own muscles enough before he put on the thick sweater he’d brought.

“Get in the tent and lay down, Sylvain.”

Her voice didn’t leave much room for challenge. Sylvain quickly took the rest of their belongings into the tent and rolled out the sleeping bag. Outside, he heard the sounds of Ingrid putting out the fire and checking the horses’ reins.

Sylvain knew that Ingrid was good at giving massages. He’d received more than a few temple massages after late nights at the monastery, back before everything had gone to shit. It was a relaxing image, to think about his head in her lap and her fingers rubbing circles around the crown of his neck.

Neither did he mind the idea of Ingrid soothing his aching hips, sore after five straight days on the road and another four to go. It was his own fault to offer to go alone. Felix needed more time and it was the only way for the three of them to make the trip together.

No, he was worried about the way they’d been orbiting around each other the last three days since he’d arrived in Galatea to her packed bags in the middle of the night, Luin glinting in the moonlight.

They’d exchanged letters and visited over the years to stay in touch but, as the 5th anniversary of the Blue Lions’ promise approached, Sylvain realized that he was tired of being away from his friends for so long.

Maybe Ingrid felt the same way. She entered the tent and quietly closed the entrance, bringing a small candle inside with her. The smoke wisped up to the open flap on the top corner of the tent, shimmering as the moonlight illuminated a small spot next to Sylvain’s leg.

He was laying mostly on his back, arms propping his head up as Ingrid walked in. She quickly tied her hair up and Sylvain caught the faintest blush on her cheeks as she folded her legs under her and took the spot next to Sylvain’s hip.

“Roll over,” she said, tracing the tops of her fingers by his knee.

“You sure about this Ing?” he asked again, obeying.

“We still have half a week to ride, Sylvain,” she said tersely.

Sylvain lost track of his thoughts as Ingrid’s fingers pressed against the small of his back, where his tight muscles had been tensing. 

“Oh…” he said, letting his head fall against his forearms. Behind him, Ingrid shifted onto her knees, digging into his sore spots expertly. He didn’t know how Ingrid knew exactly where to dig. Her knuckles kneaded the sides of his hips, releasing pressure points he didn’t even know he had. 

Then, Ingrid ran her hands gently down the side of his abdomen and down his leg, sending a wave of frisson up Sylvain’s spine.

When Ingrid moved to the other side of him, Sylvian turned his head so that he could take a peek back at her.

Ingrid looked focused, working his muscles with a strong grip, moving his legs to reach the knots he’d built up over the last week.

He yelped when Ingrid’s hand slid underneath his underclothes, pulling them down to reveal his hip bone. Ingrid rolled her hands up the line of his hip to the sore part of his butt that had been facing a saddle for hours upon hours. “Ing,” he said, wondering if she minded touching his bare skin.

The look on her face was one he’d seen on her only once, when her childhood crush on Dimitri overflowed into an awkward dance around him. She was blushing, bottom lip in between her teeth, eyes glossed over in a trance.

“Yeah, Sylvain?” she asked, pausing her hand right over his ass.

Come’ere,” said, twisting to his back and gathering her in his arms as soon as she was in reach.

Ingrid’s kiss was desperate and clumsy, spilling onto his cheek and his jaw as much as on his mouth. Her hands scrambled to touch his neck, his shoulders, his chest. 

It was the culmination of the way they’d been circling each other over the last week. Small touches here and there; the way she kissed his forehead each morning as the sun rose. The way he let his hands fall to her waist when it was time to stop and eat and give the horses water; and how they took turns watching over each other as they took breaks to bathe and use the bathroom at the river they’d been following.

Her kiss reached the tender flesh above his collarbone, and Sylvian wound his hands in Ingrid’s hair on instinct, wrapping it tightly in a loop. Her eyes met his and he asked again, to make sure.

“You sure about this Ing?”

“Let me help, Sylvain,” she replied simply, pulling herself free of his paused grip and trailing kisses down his navel.

Sylvain managed to recover his grasp on her hair, pulling it out of her face as she reached the waistband of his smallclothes.

Her fingers pressed right into the sore joints at the front of his hips, causing him to relax and dig his hips down into the bedroll. 

She kissed the same spots next, all but forcing Sylvain to relax, prop his head against one arm and the small pillow they shared so he could watch as she pulled his waistband down to spring him free.

There’d been more than one kind of tension in his hips. There was the tight, knotted ache of sitting on his saddle against rough gravel and dirt that Ingrid knew to work out with the pressure of her hands.

But there was also the ache in between his hips, longing for the way Ingrid was so close to him after so many years apart.

The way Ingrid touched his cock soothed every ounce of that ache. His hips bucked and he forced himself back against the soft fur of the bedroll, not wanting to undo the work of the massage that Ingrid had already given him. 

She stroked him just as tenderly as her massage, coaxing the same groans from between his lips, until the knuckles gripping the blanket and her hair were white.

“Ing, I don’t have the stamina I used to…” he whispered in warning.

He caught a flash of green as Ingrid’s eyes met his, and her lips parted. She brushed the tip of him gently before taking him in her mouth, urging him to relax at her touch.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head as he came, catching a glimpse of moonlight as he collapsed backwards, and Ingrid quickly found a rag to help him clean up.

“Thanks for the massage, Ing,” he managed eventually, as Ingrid used his shoulder as a pillow. He brushed his thumb against her cheek and pressed a kiss against her forehead.

“Thanks for letting me help you,” she said quietly, nuzzling herself in between his shoulder and neck. “I’ve missed you. More than missed.”

“Me too, Ing. I’ve more than missed you.”

He wrapped his arms around her and let himself fall asleep as the moonlight waned, hidden behind soft clouds that marked the changing of the seasons. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh sometimes u need a little help reaching the spots u cant reach behind ur back

Felix doesn’t notice that the two of them are spending a little too much time together.

They make it to Fraldarius with time to spare. Felix is already packed, but he’s making them stay an extra half day to let the horses rest and for them to eat and bathe properly before the rest of the trek to Garreg Mach. 

Ingrid is tired - even for her, used to long trips from Galatea to the northern territories, three days on the ground is exhausting. She wishes she could have taken to the sky - the pegasus would have been happier as well, but then Sylvain would be alone on the ground and for some reason that was even worse.

She isn’t sure when those feelings started to develop. Maybe it was after his last visit to Galatea, more than a year and a half ago, looking ghast and haggard, beard grown out, talking about the ghost of Dimitri.

She should ask him to grow it out again.

Ingrid strips in the small bedroom she’s been placed in and looks over herself in the mirror. The uneven gallop of the horse bruised her hip and shoulder, where the heaviest of her armor clanked often against her. For all of the training she’s finally gotten to do in Galatea, she still hasn’t gotten used to wearing armor day in and out like back at the academy. 

No, that would take a few more painful months to build the strength in her back and core again. Until then, she’d suffer through familiar aches, the same as when she’d first learned to swing her spear. Her hands burned for weeks, and then her arms and shoulders until she could hold the weight of the weapon.

She just wishes she could ask Mercedes for a nice back rub - the older woman had a penchant for it, and was actually willing to touch Ingrid’s back bare.

Ingrid lays in the small bed and folds the covers over herself, hoping being able to lay and stretch and sleep on a mattress will give her body the rest it needs before another long trip, more nights on the ground, and arriving to whatever they would find at the monastery.

As if on cue, Ingrid’s scarcely pulled the sheets over her naked body before she hears a soft knock on the door.

“Ing?” the voice asks. It’s Sylvain’s low whisper, the kind he uses when he’s unsure. “Got a minute?”

“What is it?” she replies. Sylvain opens the door just wide enough to step through and comes in before registering that she’s under the sheets and all he can see is a tuft of her blonde hair and her eyes, watching him.

He’s wearing his sleep clothes, a long, pale tunic again, and his hair is tousled like he’d just woken up.

“I… oh. Are you napping?”

“No, I just got into bed. What do you need?”

Sylvain looks flustered, as his eyes glance to her clothes on the ground.

“I was going to… offer a massage. But maybe now’s not…”

Bless him, for anticipating what she needed. “I’ll take it,” she says shamelessly.

“But…”

“But?”

“Nevermind. Okay. Where do I start?”

Sylvain walks over to her and puts his hand on her upper back and begins to push and knead. He’s dogshit at massages, and the only saving grace is that he  _ hasn’t _ shaved and that she can picture the shadow of a beard on his jaw and feel of his hands on her bare skin.

“Sylvain, you have to remove the blanket,” she says. Sylvain balks, though she can’t see it.

“You sure?”

“Then you need to find my shoulder blade and dig just towards my spine.”

Sylvain obeys and his fingers hit a knot that Ingrid couldn’t reach with her arm behind her back. She can’t help but groan as the tight muscle begins to loosen. 

“Yeah, right there Sylvain.” 

He massages the spot until it’s through, and hovers his hands over her shoulders. “What’s next Ing?”

“Pull my shoulder muscles towards your thumb with your fingers.”

Sylvain may be terrible at massages on his own, but the man follows instructions amazingly. Ingrid’s lost in cathartic bliss as his hands work out the aches in her back, and she finally feels relieved enough to focus on the sensation of his hands.

His fingertips are rough and calloused from years of holding ground in battle, and they scratch gently against her skin as he digs. His palms, when she instructs him to press the heel of his hand against the larger muscles on either side of her shoulder blades, is strong and powerful, used to holding his spear for hours on end.

The thought of his hands holding her arms, or the tops of her thighs, sends a blush to Ingrid’s cheeks and a hungry lighting bolt through her core. She can’t help sigh as he presses on the thin muscles around her spine, working his way down to her lower back.

She can’t help but want him to keep sinking his hands past the sheets covering her ass, either. 

Sylvain moves automatically as Ingrid shifts her hips so that the blanket slides down, revealing the curve of her butt, and she thinks that amybe that tent wasn’t a one off.

“Lower, Sylvain,” she says in a whisper. His hands freeze in recognition of what she’s asking. “Behind my legs, where I sit. They hurt.”

Sylvain’s hands are so gentle. They trace around her hips, through the sides, until he’s gripping the back of her thigh. He strips the blanket so that it’s covering just her groin.

“What do I do?” he asks.

She can’t see him; her face is propped up by her forearm on the bed, half to offer her back and half to hide the red tint that’s taken over her face. But she can feel his hand gently moving back and forth and it takes all of her effort not to squeeze her legs together and trap him.

“Your knuckles. Knead slowly from near my knee and up,” she replied, keeping her voice as even as she could.

Sylvain’s hands don’t shake the way her voice would if she spoke again. He uses the low groans and subtle shifts of her legs and hips to guide his way towards the spots she needs him to massage. 

He works his way up to the top of her leg, where the blanket covers her glute muscles, and pauses again. 

“Now what?” he asks, trailing his fingers in small circles at the edge of uncovered territory. Each swirl sends fire through her belly, and her legs are shaking so slightly that she hopes Sylvain doesn’t notice.

“Keep going,” she says, daring to peel her face from her arms to look at Sylvain.

His face is lit in just the dim candles she’d set before going to bed, and the orange embers perfectly complement his hair. She can’t tell if there’s a blush on his face, but the way he stands over her, hands just inches away from her center, he looks like he’s been smitten.

Sylvain catches her eye and bites his lip at the obvious look on her face.

“Like this?” he says, teasingly, sliding his fingers for a firm grasp on her butt, closing them slowly. Ingrid sucks in a breath and nods.

“Okay,” he says. He digs his fingers into where her legs meet her hips, and Ingrid wishes he would move his hands further towards the center. He scratches a line up the back of her leg and Ingrid nearly twists and traps his hands between her thighs.

“Sylvain,” she says, turning her head again to look at him. 

“Yes Ing?” he asks with a lewd smile on his face. He’s obviously enjoying this, and she almost wants to make him suffer the strain in his own pants.

“More.”

Ingrid shuts her eyes as Sylvain’s fingers finally slide over her core. She’s wet, she’s been wet since Sylvian’s warm hands first touched the back of her legs, but now he can feel the effect he’s had on her and Ingrid would bury herself in the sheets again if it didn’t feel so damn good.

Sylvain was goddess awful at massages, but at this, he was beyond fantastic.

One of his hands slides under her hips and the other on her knee, arranging her so that her ass is a few inches off the bed and her weight is mostly on her knees. Then he kisses the side of her face before sliding into the bed next to her, on his side, one arm propping him up and the other reaching for her.

It’s a good thing when he presses his face into the side of her neck; it gives her something else to focus on as his fingers slip inside her, coaxing a long slow moan from her throat. His thumb is careful to keep pressure just outside, anchoring the way he curls his fingers into her. 

Ingrid digs her face into the pillow in pleasure as Sylvain works, teasing her until she’s saying his name into her pillow, turning her head to face him, forehead on forehead, and breathing so hard she can’t say much more than “S-Syl…”

He smiles wickedly and captures her lips in a kiss before adding another finger, making Ingrid arch her back into the touch.

He manages to kiss her neck, too, driving home the burning, fiery ache in her belly.

She grips the bedsheets as a rough groan rips from her throat, her best attempt at telling Sylvain that she’s almost ready to come.

Ever the expert, he only adds sensations, using his thumb to brush against her clit until Ingrid feels the mounting pressure build and build just above her hips, making her body shake and shiver.

Sylvain’s mouth covers hers as she comes, keeping her moan from spilling out into the hallway, hips bucking into Sylvain’s hand and against the bed until she calms, following the way Sylvain’s fingers slow their pace and slowly release the sensations.

His thumb gives one last cursory pass before lifting; then his thrusts get shallower until she can barely feel him and she lowers her hips onto the bed.

Sylvian gathers her into his arms, pressing a long kiss behind her ear as Ingrid’s breathing begins to regulate.

“Like that?” he asks, pulling her into a tight embrace.

Ingrid nods into his neck. “Mmmm,” she manages, falling asleep before she hears Sylvain’s reply. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blame mish
> 
> unedited so sorry if mistaek
> 
> yes i changed tenses sometimes it hits different

**Author's Note:**

> heheheoehoehoahohaohaohaohaohaeoheaohaoeheao


End file.
